Balance and Epiphanies
by XV
Summary: Inspired by a SPLENDIFEROUS manip by Coalitiongirl which you can find on her Tumblr and dedicated to her for her wonderful work for SQ. Also inspired by that tell-tale long pause after Emma says she loves Hook but doesn't kiss him just before she goes to save Regina.


**Balance and Epiphanies**

 _A/N: Inspired by this SPLENDIFEROUS manip by Coalitiongirl which you can find on her Tumblr and dedicated to her for her wonderful work for SQ. Also inspired by that tell-tale long pause after Emma says she loves Hook but doesn't kiss him._

 _ **Disclaimer: Nothing is mine, I receive no monetary reward for my scribbles. Go ahead and sue me, I look forward to the opportunity to read femslash out loud in court.**_

Regina lowered her eyes as she felt the whirling strands of darkness lash around her body, feeling the tendrils covering her chest and beginning to tighten round her rapidly beating heart. She tried to struggle, she didn't want this, she'd had her fill of darkness and evil and all that went with them. In the distance she heard Emma's voice answering someone's question.

"What darkness does, it's snuffing out the light."

The whirlwind grew louder and she could barely make out the figures beyond the swirling tornado of dark power. She saw someone run toward her only to be thrown back, she thought it was Robin but couldn't be sure. Once again she heard Emma over the noise surrounding her.

"The Apprentice told me we have to do what the Sorcerer did; we have to tether it to a person to contain it."

Regina heard the words Emma spoke and was overwhelmed with a feeling of dread and of something being terribly, terribly wrong, not just with what was happening but with what Emma was saying. With effort she raised her head up to see Emma rushing towards her, the noble intent to sacrifice herself clear on the blonde's face.

"No! There has to be another way!" Regina called out, momentarily stopping Emma in her tracks.

"There isn't." The words came out quietly and Regina almost missed the desperate ones that followed them because she was concentrating so hard on Emma's face, watching as tears welled in her beautiful green eyes and her voice roughened with emotion.

"You've worked too hard to have your happiness destroyed!"

Regina took a step back, rocked by a lightening swift epiphany, the Apprentice was wrong! The Sorcerer was wrong! Trying to contain and control the darkness had never worked, merely producing a being that perpetuated the struggle between the Dark and Light powers. Her mind scurried along this idea trying to find the answer, the solution that would end that power struggle.

During her musings she was only vaguely aware of Emma being distracted by her parents, but when Hook stepped forward and pulled the blonde back she refocused on the pair mere steps away. She saw the desperation on the Pirate's face as he pleaded with Emma not to do what she was so obviously intending to do.

"Emma please! No, don't do this."

Looking into his eyes Emma knew, she finally knew what had been in front of her for so long, what she'd been blind to and refused to see. Her self-revelation was instant and irrevocable she couldn't deny herself and her feelings anymore, not now, when she had to do what she knew she must. The blonde took Hook's good hand and brought it to rest on her chest.

"I love you."

Tears started to fall as she pulled the man down till their foreheads met and she whispered out the rest.

"But you're not my true love Killian. I do love you but I love her more. I hope, I hope someday you find happiness."

The pirate gripped her shoulder, unwilling or unable to let go.

"No, please..."

Emma whispered two more words, "I'm sorry."

Without warning she pushed the man back and turned to the whirling darkness lunging into the vortex to save the one she finally admitted to herself, was her true love. Her arm thrust up and forward holding the dagger out like bait and moved toward Regina.

The pattern of the ribbons of darkness changed abruptly as they recognised the pull of the dagger and moved to engulf the blonde only reluctantly letting go their hold on Regina. Once the inky tendrils had gripped Emma's arm however the vortex expelled the brunette with such force she fell backward landing hard on the ground, her cry of despair heard clearly by the others in the street.

"Emma, No!" She called out.

Robin rushed forward to help Regina stand and tried to draw her away from the scene of Emma's continuing struggle but she roughly pushed him away and turned bac,k half circling the vortex looking for a way back to the blonde's side.

It was suddenly completely clear to Regina the pieces had fallen into place and she knew why the Apprentices' instructions were so wrong. She realised that all worlds are made up of darkness and light, and everywhere the struggle these two opposite forces engaged in was misinterpreted as conflict and a struggle for ultimate power and dominance linked to the eradication of one or the other side, when in fact the real struggle was to achieve balance between the two sides.

Regina realised that in so many of the different realms she knew of, it had become custom, sometimes over eons for the powers of light and darkness to be regularly corrupted and by a variety of methods harvested and gathered together under the control of a few or even a single being, both dark and light, fostering and perpetuating the imbalance and struggle for several eternities. She wasn't sure if this was the case in all the other realms or only in those that had magic, but she understood that it wasn't the normal way of things here in this world. Somehow the opposing forces managed to find a certain kind of equilibrium in this realm, fluctuating, but never consolidating in any one location or for any great length of time.

Putting all these pieces together Regina's clarity continued allowing her to note that of the six people present the darkness had chosen first herself, and then accepted Emma as its prey, completely ignoring the others. She rejected her first conclusion that this was because the darkness was drawn only to the darkness in both of them, instead the idea hit her that the powers of the Dark One had sought each of them out not for their darkness or indeed to attack the light within them, but had been drawn to the combination of both powers within each woman. That was it! That was the key!

Without wasting a further second Regina slipped from under the hand Robin had timidly placed on her shoulder while she was thinking and launched herself back into the vortex which allowed her in directly to the heart of the maelstrom where she shocked Emma by reaching up and grabbing hold of the blade of the dagger barely wincing as the edge cut into her palm and blood began to ooze down her wrist.

"Regina! What the hell are you doing? Get out of here."

"No! You don't have to sacrifice yourself Emma. You don't have to do this alone."

"Regina, I won't let you go back to being evil, I won't let you sacrifice your happiness and I won't let Henry lose you. Let go!"

The blonde cringed at the necessity of causing Regina injury, but didn't let herself stop as she tried to pull the blade from the older woman's hand. Regina gasped in pain when Emma yanked but she adjusted her grip allowing the blade to slice deeper as she tightened her hold despite the slipperiness of her bleeding hand. Ignoring the pain, she pushed their arms to the side and stepped closer till she was well within the blonde's personal space demanding Emma's undivided attention.

"Emma listen to me. The Apprentice was wrong, the Sorcerer was wrong, everyone who has ever tried to concentrate and control this power they were all wrong! The power we call the Dark One doesn't need to be contained or tethered it needs to be released so it can be balanced with the power of light."

Emma hesitated and stopped her pulling motion on the dagger, much to Regina's relief.

"Release it? Are you crazy? Do you want it to go after someone else? Robin or Snow or Henry?"

Regina moved closer still until they were standing nearly nose to nose, she captured the other woman's wide eyed gaze with the intensity of her own.

"Look around you Emma. Why did the Dark One surround me first and then you? Why not Hook, why not one of the others out there even now?" She waved her free hand toward the figures outside the swirling black ribbons.

"The reason the dark power has become so unstable is because of the thousands of years it has been concentrated into what we call the Dark One." She shook the dagger they both held, ignoring the pain it caused her.

"It's been contained and held captive in this dagger for eons, passed from one person to the next, each one thinking they could succeed if they could just manage to gather every drop of darkness into this one object and finally have power enough to completely destroy the light because that's what they thought the urge the darkness imbued them with to seek out the light was all about. But they were all wrong! It's never happened because each time the blade transfers I think a certain amount of darkness escapes its prison before the new master can control it. And every time that happens the darkness begins its search for the light that it needs, not to vanquish the light but to seek its balance; a balance that can never be achieved because so much of the darkness is still trapped."

Emma continued to look at Regina with wide, uncertain eyes. Her attention was fractured between battling with the power that still twisted and twined itself in tightening bands around their two bodies, trying to take in what the other woman was saying, and trying to deal with her new understanding that Regina was in fact her true love. Her body began to tremble under the strain as she vocalised her uncertainty about what Regina was telling her.

"But, why us?"

"Because, well because we have both found a balance between the light and dark power within us. We've both crossed the line from one extreme to the other before coming to stand on the middle ground, accepting both the light and the dark in ourselves."

The vortex surged around them almost like it was aware of their exchange and was trying to engage them. Emma struggled to contain the surge of power that felt like it was plucking at the knife in her hand. Her eyes darted around uncertainly before returning to the brown depths of Regina's eyes, searching for reassurance.

"Trust me." Regina pleaded with her.

Emma hesitated before whispering.

"Are you sure?"

"As sure as I can be."

Regina reached out and took Emma's free hand in her own, wanting to connect with the younger woman to reassure her if she could. When their fingers closed around each other's the dark energy went into a frenzy, increasing in speed and intensity, as if a circuit had been completed. The coils of inky blackness writhed around their hands where they each clasped the dagger. At the same time a bright white light appeared along their arms and flowed down intertwining with the strands of black as if embracing them.

"What…what's happening?" Emma's voice rose above the sound of the wind.

Regina and Emma watched the contrasting ribbons battle around the dagger and both felt spiking energy running through their bodies.

"I think the darkness is summoning the light inside us, trying to find enough to balance the dark power within the dagger." Regina looked up at the younger woman, a rising panic in her eyes.

"Emma, it won't be anywhere near enough! If a balance isn't achieved, I think, I think the darkness will finally overtake one of us." She squeezed Emma's hand pleadingly.

"Please, Emma, if that happens, promise me you'll let go of the dagger."

"No. I meant what I said Regina, I won't let you sacrifice yourself. I… I can't let you sacrifice yourself. I wouldn't survive that." Her voice trailed off with the quiet admission of her vulnerability.

Suddenly Emma felt a surge of energy spike around her heart, pulling and twisting as if it wanted to burst out of her chest, noting Regina's matching grimace she surmised the older woman was feeling something similar. With the pressure increasing and becoming more and more painful she finally pulled the other woman fully into a one armed embrace, bringing their lips to within millimetres of each other, her eyes shining with the obvious feelings of her earlier epiphany.

"I love you Regina. You are my true love, not Killian. I don't…I don't know if I'm yours, but I wanted, no I needed you to know." She sighed before continuing. "I needed you to know so you'll understand why I won't, why I _can't_ let go of this dagger."

Regina gaped opened mouthed at Emma, the declaration stabbing through the strain the dark energy was exerting on her body and her magic as it searched and pulled all the light within her to the surface. Regina abruptly saw the events of the previous year with piercing clarity, finally understanding the strange unease she had always felt about Robin being her fated soul mate. She realised that all of her interactions with him had been predicated on nothing more than a desperate desire for a happy ending. So much so that she had willingly ignored her misgivings and the obvious signs that Robin was not the one for her after all. Looking into emerald pools that watched her carefully, she had no doubts, no qualms and no misgivings that she was indeed being held by her own true love.

The younger woman's declaration had been met with an agitated surge from the powers around them, a surge that Regina ignored in favour of processing this extraordinary but strangely expected turn of events. True Love! That had to be the answer! The most powerful light magic there is. The brunette blinked at the ridiculous simplicity of it all, glancing down toward the dagger now engulfed in black and white bands of power, the energy discharged so strong it was vibrating both women's arms as neither relinquished their grip on the weapon.

Regina finally pulled herself out of her dazed state and flashed the surprised blonde the most stunning smile that had ever graced the older woman's face before she pulled Emma forward the few millimetres needed and let her lips meld with those of her true love.

Any doubt of the truth of their relationship was blown away by the huge surge of light magic that burst forth from their entwined forms and rushed headlong down their arms before spilling into the silver dagger. The shining white light was welcomed by the velvety blackness as the blade was forcibly pulled from both women's grasp and rose in the air above their heads. Instinctively Emma and Regina now embraced each other with both arms and tried to shield each other from the energy storm that surrounded them. The swirls of lashing black ribbons moved from circling round the two women and spiralled up into the white cocoon enclosing the dagger above them.

The contraction of the dark energy tornado left them once again clearly visible to the others on the street who all rushed forward at the same time only to be thrown back by the force of the now hugely expanded ball of energy that surrounded the Dark One's dagger.

Wanting to see what was happening both Emma and Regina raised their heads up at the exact moment the last ray of white energy met with the last inky tendril of the tornado. The second this blending of the two forces was complete, there was a huge percussive blast and the cursed dagger exploded in a shower of black and white starbursts that melted one into the other as they fell. Emma and Regina and the others felt the whoosh of released energy wash over and through them in rapidly changing waves of cold and heat that lasted for several minutes until they finally stopped

Emma and Regina straightened up from their former protective stance but remained in their close embrace with foreheads touching and oblivious to everything around them. They smiled at each other and Emma angled her head just enough to rub her nose affectionately against Regina's.

"I guess it worked." The blonde chuckled. "Looks like the darkness and the light found their balance with a bang."

"Yes, a big bang." Regina answered followed by a soft snort.

Emma smiled and leant down her lips claiming those of the older brunette again and again. With each kiss she ticked off a list in her head:

Regina sacrificing herself for me, Henry and the rest of Storybrooke. Check

Stepping up and refusing to let her sacrifice herself. Check

Realising that Regina is my true love and getting to tell her that. Check

Regina figuring out how to destroy the Dark One's dagger and not flatten the

whole town in the process. Check

Destroying the dagger and living to tell the tale. Check

Kissing Regina Check and Mate

All in all thought Emma, not a bad day's work for Emma Swan, not a bad day at all.


End file.
